


selfish prayers

by alderations



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Anal Sex, Consentacles, Creampie, I Am Very Much A Scalie, Multi, Polyamory, Sex Magic, Sexual Experimentation, Smut, Tentacles, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Sex, no lizard dick... yet, or just using regular ol' run-of-the-mill tentacle magic for sex, these tags sound real wild but it's not. that wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 04:55:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17822303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alderations/pseuds/alderations
Summary: There was something to be said for the shock value of sprouting extra limbs, and if he knew his humans, he knew that they would be interested.





	selfish prayers

**Author's Note:**

> so I heard there was a tentacle thing going on and I couldn't just stand by and not be part of it.
> 
> (title from "Bedroom Hymns" by Florence + the Machine)

Lord Arum wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with his humans. He couldn’t deny that. Enthusiasm wasn’t the issue, as evidenced by his lashing tail and the rattle growing in his throat until it interrupted him every few seconds. He was more concerned with his own… ignorance, and at the moment, he was too proud to admit as much to Damien and Amaryllis. Which they knew, of course. His humans, in all their empathy, had learned to read his every tell within days together, even though he still struggled with their basic facial expressions. But he blamed that on their unerring sociability, among other weird primate proclivities.

Anyway. They knew what he was feeling, how badly he wanted to be with them, just as they knew how uncomfortable he was with everything he didn’t know. Damien conveyed his feelings through subtle teasing and soft looks, but Rilla was always more direct. “Arum. You are aware of how human sex works, yes?”

“Of course I am,” the lizard lord huffed, rushing to get the words out before he could start rattling again. “I—just because monsters don’t… procreate the same way doesn’t mean I don’t know the basics.”

The Keep hummed an affirmative, not that Arum needed its opinions. “Hush, you,” he grumbled, only to let out a more insistent rattle when Rilla raised an eyebrow at him.

“Not helping your own case, Arum.”

He crossed three of his arms and gestured wildly at Damien and Rilla with the fourth. “I did ask the Keep, when I was but a—a nymph—”

_ “Please  _ don’t say that word ever again,” interrupted Damien, sounding a little queasy.

Arum cleared his throat, or at least imitated the noise he’d heard Rilla make so many times. “I did ask the Keep, once, where humans came from. I got a more… thorough explanation than I necessarily  _ wanted.” _ He emphasized the last word, glancing up at the ceiling as if the Keep had a scrap of shame. “So I know what your kind do. When procreating. And for fun, apparently. It seems an awful waste of energy, but so are most human pastimes, anyway.”

“A waste of energy?” Rilla laughed. “Maybe for a—a bacterium, or something. Not for humans. And not for lizards either, I imagine.” She was so tiny compared to Arum, but when she turned that smirk on him, he felt the weight of the universe compelling him to fall at her feet.

He was able to resist the urge. Barely. “Are humans still unaware of binary fission?” he grumbled, turning his eyes away from Rilla only to be distracted again by Damien’s puzzled face.

“That was the joke, Arum. If bacteria were having sex, it  _ would  _ be a waste of energy.”

“Hmph.” Arum added his fourth arm to the tangle in front of his chest, just to prevent himself from pulling Damien in by the collar and—well, he’d figure that part out when he got there. Rilla was well aware of the minute workings of the universe, but Damien was mouthing the word  _ fission _ like it had stabbed him in the back. “And what about you, honeysuckle? You truly think your time is well-spent with your… your passionate throws?  _ Tktktktktktk. _ ” He mimed tossing something in their direction, mostly for effect but also, again, to fight his desire to scoop them both up in his grasp.

Now there were two human stares turned on him, bright-eyed and befuddled, and Arum could hardly hear himself think over the steady hiss rising in his throat. He was dimly aware of the Keep singing a suggestion, but he refused to entertain any of those at the moment. Or at most moments, if he was honest with himself. Finally, Damien tilted his head to one side like a naked little bird, which was not an image that Arum needed in his mind here, in his private chambers, with his half-clad lovers studying him so intently. “Do you mean throes, Arum? Passionate lovemaking?”

“Spare me the semantics, little knight. How else would your kind wreak such havoc on structurally infirm towers?”

Rilla looked back and forth between the two of them a few times, and even with his limited grasp on human expressions, Arum could tell that she was holding back a laugh. “So you think you’d like to toss me up against a wall, huh?”

“If that’s how you humans express your affection toward one another, then of course! Though I would worry significantly about your fragile bones and your—your soft, damp,  _ pathetically _ destructible skin!  _ Tktktktktktktk!” _

As they both broke into laughter, clear and genuine, Arum realized that he wasn’t nearly as embarrassed as he ought to be. He did trust his humans, after all. “I wouldn’t necessarily call throwing an affectionate gesture,” Damien explained through his mirth. “It’s certainly something that, ah, can be done, though. If you were so inclined. Only if you’re interested, of course. If you’re too worried about our dainty countenances, then—”

“Damien wants you to shove him into a wall. Or a bed. Either works,” Rilla translated seamlessly.

After their first few meetings, Arum was certain that he had tossed Damien around before, and vice versa. So he really ought not to feel like his mouth had gone dry just from the thought of hefting his precious knight around in his arms. Oh, and he could be creative, too; maybe let Damien cling to him while he carried him over one shoulder, or bear-hug him from behind so he couldn’t move an inch, or—

“I can hear you both thinking,” Amaryllis cut into his inner monologue. “Arum, it’s okay if you’re not comfortable with human sexuality yet. And I know you’re interested, I’m not trying to shut you out, but I just think…” She pressed her lips together, appraising Arum and Damien both like stubborn plants misbehaving in her garden. “We could... tutor you. Show you the ropes.”

“I like that idea,” Damien breathed, eyes fixed on Rilla’s pensive face.

Arum took a step toward them both, intrigued but still loath to admit his own curiosity. “I would watch you, then? While you do the—the throws of love or whatever?”

“Sure,” Rilla giggled. “Or you could always, uh, experiment. Learn what we like, how our bodies work, and all that.” She stared up at Arum with a challenge glimmering in her dark eyes, and he felt something in his chest that was almost too human for comfort. Next to her, Damien looked ready to squirm out of his skin, or at least his pants. “Though I don’t think that using your hands is a good idea, at least for the first time around. As attractive as your claws are, I don’t need them that close to certain parts of my body.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” squeaked Damien.

They both turned to look at him, Arum with concern and Rilla with calm amusement. “Next time, maybe,” she assured him. “Once he knows what he’s doing.”

“If you say so,” Arum muttered, still convinced that he would hurt them—particularly Damien—without intending to do so. “What would you have me use instead? My tail? That seems... uncomfortable.”

Rilla looked him up and down in a way that made his scales crawl, like she was testing every part of his body in her mind, putting them together with hers and Damien’s in the kind of lewd puzzle that humans loved so much. “You  _ are  _ a magic monster,” she replied after a bit. “I’m sure you could come up with something on your own.”

To his own surprise, Arum could think of several ways to ravage his humans without so much as touching them. Clearly, they were getting to him. “I’ll—I’ll figure something out. You two, ah, do what you need to get ready in here.” He turned away and bustled out of the room before Rilla could start laughing again; he knew that she wasn’t laughing at him, only at the weird disconnect between monster and human cultures that left them all so confused, but he wasn’t above admitting his own embarrassment. To himself. In private.

The Keep hummed a few possibilities to him as he walked toward his workshop, which Arum staunchly ignored. It may not be his  _ mom, _ as Amaryllis so crudely put it, but he still didn’t need its contributions to his sex life, thank you very much. Besides, he already had something in mind, and it only took a few minutes of digging through the intentional disarray of his workshop to find it. A jar of tiny roots, all soft jade green with fuzzy tendrils sprouting in every direction, was sequestered between a shriekweed prototype (currently  _ tktktktktk- _ ing at him like an impertinent child) and a scroll with hastily sketched plans for… he didn’t remember. There were a lot of blueprints in his workshop, how was he supposed to know what they all meant? He was still trying to keep Amaryllis from organizing the place by force, especially since she might actually want to  _ do  _ things with all his half-finished projects. For such a small, scaleless creature, she was a force to be reckoned with.

He shook the thoughts from his head, despite the warmth swelling in his chest when he considered Rilla’s endless determination. One of the roots would be more than enough for these purposes. He’d used them plenty of times before, usually when he was working on a project too big for four arms to handle, but he had also learned the hard way that extra appendages could develop minds of their own, particularly if the user was too tired to rein them in. So he plucked a single root from the jar, gave it a hesitant sniff, and then swallowed it whole, unable to keep from grimacing at the salty aftertaste.

Immediately, he felt the air around his shoulders stirring, swept around by some indescribable force that smelled of salt and seaweed and… pretty much just seaweed. The smell never lingered, thankfully, and Arum took off down the hallway in hopes of returning to the bedroom before the effects started to show in earnest. There was something to be said for the shock value of sprouting extra limbs, and if he knew his humans, he knew that they would be interested. He turned the corner just as the first one started to emerge, rising from his flesh like mist from cool water, and at once he knew that he had been correct. Whatever Rilla was doing to Damien a moment before—he didn’t think too hard on that—she stopped, staring instead over Arum’s shoulder with a hunger in her eyes that he had never seen before.

“What is that?” Damien broke the silence, his voice high and wobbly. One of Rilla’s hands was still absentmindedly stroking his thigh, but both humans were fixated on Arum now, particularly when another few appendages sprung from thin air behind his back.

Arum looked down at the bed, too flustered to make any sense when they both looked at him like that. “Octopus-root,” he explained. “It’s common up north, since it comes from the sea. I usually use it for bigger projects when I need assistance that the Keep cannot offer.”

“Octopus… they’re  _ tentacles?” _

Rilla stepped off the bed and was in Arum’s space in seconds, already fondling one tentacle with enthusiastic hands. “It depends on your definition, but generally octopus appendages are classified as arms, not tentacles, not that it really matters in colloquial speech—”

“You can call them whatever you want,” Arum grumped. “They didn’t come from an octopus, they came from me. Magically. Using an octopus-root.”

Neither of them were listening at that point. Rilla was already getting well-acquainted with the first few tentacles, even as more appeared from every open surface on Arum’s back, and he thought he could actually see Damien’s mouth watering. Once again, he had underestimated just how  _ weird _ his humans were. Though, in this case, their weirdness would be beneficial. “What—what do you want me to actually  _ do,  _ Amaryllis?”

“Go sit on the bed. Up against the wall.” She steered him into place, refusing to let go of the tentacle that was slowly winding around her arm and approaching her bare chest. As soon as Arum had his back to the wall how Rilla wanted, Damien was on top of him, kissing his face and neck and pushing the cape from his shoulders with newfound determination. Arum clenched his claws in the sheets to fight the urge to grab Damien by the waist and pull him closer. “Can you actually feel through the tentacles?” asked Rilla, studying Arum with her chin in one hand.

“They feel like fingers, if anything.” Another one started to wrap around Rilla’s waist, while Arum succumbed to the temptation to brush Damien’s hair behind his ear and nuzzle his cheek. “It can be hard to control them, though. Not—I don’t think they would hurt you, they just don’t always do what I want. Different musculature, you know.”

Rilla smirked and pressed Arum’s shoulders back again until he let go of Damien. “So you’re comfortable using them on us, and it’ll be a good way to learn?”

“I—I believe so. Yes.” He was still more nervous than he cared to admit, but Rilla’s gentle smile and Damien’s heavy petting eased his fears before they could really form. Their combined attention flustered him, which was harder to hide when he had a dozen tentacles with minds of their own wavering all around him. Then Rilla grabbed Damien’s shoulder and pulled him to her, kissing him with the same endless need as always, and Arum let a few tendrils reach out to explore.

Kissing was still a mystery to him, to some extent. It didn’t work the same way with a snout, but they were able to figure it out most of the time, and besides, it wasn’t as pleasant to Arum as it seemed to be for Damien and Rilla, with their soft lips and weird little tongues. One tentacle rose to where their mouths met, caressing both of their faces and then moving down to stroke Damien’s throat until his whole body began to shiver. Damien liked to feel vulnerable with his lovers; that much Arum knew by now, just from the burning excitement in his eyes whenever Arum held him down or nipped at his skin with just the points of his teeth. The tentacle at Rilla’s waist was fondling her breast now, twisting around her nipple until she broke away from Damien with a gasp.

Arum hadn’t expected that. Mammals were strange in a lot of ways, but he hadn’t expected hyper-sensitive milk glands to be one of them. “That—that feels  _ good?” _

“Yeah,” Rilla breathed. Her nails dug into Damien’s hips. “Yeah, you’re d-doing great, Arum.”

Curious, he extended another tentacle to feel Damien’s chest, and was even more befuddled when his reaction mirrored Rilla’s. “Yours don’t even work! This makes no sense,  _ tktktktktktk,”  _ he hissed.

“Humans aren’t— _ mmph— _ that different,” explained Rilla, squirming when the tentacle at her breast moved down her belly and toward the apex of her legs. “There’s no point having entirely different nervous systems just for—”

Damien quieted her with another kiss, hands tangling in her hair and chest pressed to hers. As confused as Arum was, he was far more interested in tactile learning in this situation, so he followed Damien’s lead and pulled them both closer with a few tentacles around their waists. When Damien let her go again, Rilla turned toward Arum and straddled his thigh, keeping one hand in Damien’s hair as she ground down against Arum. The sensation of human… fluid on his scales was strange but better than he would have expected, particularly when it was coupled with Rilla’s warm body rutting against him and her tender throat bared so close to his face. Arum ran his tongue up the side of her neck and tasted all the pheromones that humans couldn’t even smell for themselves, until he was dizzy from the heavy scent of Rilla’s lust in his mouth.

While Rilla made herself comfortable with his body, Damien was occupied with the tentacles, leading them across his body with unexpected confidence until one was draped around his shoulders and another was examining the minute details of his cock. Arum had expected Damien to be more talkative in bed, but instead it seemed that he was silently cataloguing every detail, formulating the metaphors that he would extract from these moments until no one else truly understood what he was talking about. Which was probably for the best, since Arum could keel over from embarrassment if Damien’s poetry were any more literal.

Rilla took her cue from Damien, apparently, because she grabbed the tentacle still hesitantly stroking her belly and pushed it closer to her crotch. “What do you want me to do?” Arum prompted when she growled at the tentacle as if it knew exactly what she was thinking.

“I want it in me,” she whined, and that was certainly not a tone he ever thought he’d hear from his Amaryllis. “And you can—also…” She rose to her knees again, wobbling a bit, and pulled another tentacle down to slip through the wetness between her legs. Arum concentrated on her face and the gentle sounds in her throat, exploring her warm flesh until he found what she wanted him to—the hardened nub right at the front of her vulva, and when he rubbed the tip of the tentacle across it, she bit her lip and moaned, a sound like pure honey. He let another, more eager tentacle press against her entrance until it slid into her, easier than he had expected with all the slick smeared down her thighs.

External human parts were already strange to him, but the texture inside Rilla was something else altogether. Still delightful, like every inch of her, but unique in a way that must’ve been clear on Arum’s face, because Damien was giggling at him as Arum pressed the tip of the tentacle against her walls, experimenting. He could only imagine what it would feel like to have other parts inside her, engulfed by this overwhelming heat.

“Can—can I…?” prompted Damien, reaching for the tentacle that was now creeping up his neck and into his hair. Arum nodded, even though he had no idea what Damien was asking, and then watched with open fascination as Damien guided the tentacle down and behind himself, toward his own hole. (The Keep had spent most of Arum’s brief sex ed lesson explaining why humans, in all their endless greed, had  _ multiple  _ orifices down there, and he still didn’t really get it, but he wasn’t about to bring it up now.) Even on their own, the tentacle was slimy enough to penetrate him, though he was tighter, firmer than Rilla, and the feeling of his muscles clenching and relaxing around the tentacle was nearly enough to make Arum’s eyes roll back in his head. He worked the appendage in farther, monitoring Damien’s every breath for discomfort and feeling around for every spot that made him whimper and grind down against Arum.

Rilla rocked forward and back, following the rhythm of the tentacles fondling her, though she was still lucid enough to offer advice. “You want the part… it’s in the front, it’s higher up, like—”

She didn’t need to be too specific, thankfully, because the tentacle inside Damien found the spot she described, and Damien yelped, then clapped a hand over his mouth. Arum reached out with his own limb for once and stroked Damien’s cheek until he dropped the hand. “There’s no need to silence yourself, honeysuckle,” he soothed. “Do you have any idea what your sounds do to me?” He massaged that same place inside Damien as he spoke, memorizing every shuddering breath that he wrenched from Damien’s mouth.

“P-please,  _ Arum,” _ he cried, pitching forward to lean against one of Arum’s shoulders.

“I need to watch you, dearest. That’s the point here.” He wrapped another tentacle around Damien’s chest and pulled him upright again, then held him in place as he gave his cock a gentle squeeze. “Is it safe to say I’ve found a good combination?”

Even as she gasped and writhed before him, Rilla laughed. “Awfully scientific of you.”

“I am not—I’m using magic tentacles! Shut up!”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “I will n-no—ahh, fuck,  _ Arum!”  _ Her walls spasmed around the tentacle inside her, while the one rubbing against her gave her all the pressure she needed to tip into orgasm. Even Damien seemed to have forgotten his own pleasure, focused as he was on Rilla’s silently screaming face, her legs trembling around Arum’s, and then her lips when he pulled her close and kissed her breathless mouth. For a moment, Arum worried that she would be overwhelmed, but she was laughing again when Damien pulled back. “Must you always have the last word, you insatiable lizard?”

“The human calls  _ me _ insatiable,” he grumbled, flicking her clit with the tip of a tentacle just to see how her belly twitched. “Ridiculous creatures.”

“And yet you enjoy us so,” countered Damien.

Arum narrowed his eyes, turning the brunt of his attention to Damien again and twisting the tentacle around his cock with the sweetest friction. “Are you close, honeysuckle? I could think of a dozen ways to finish you off.”

A high whimper built up in Damien’s throat. “Saints, Arum, you can do whatever you’d like, he panted.

“I think…” Arum turned his gaze to Rilla, who looked like she was trying to coerce a second tentacle inside herself. “I think I’d like to see how humans do this. Without intervening lizards.”

They both stared at him for a moment, piecing his meaning together, until Rilla’s eyes lit up with understanding. She dismounted his thigh and turned around to settle against his chest, while the tentacles fondling her slipped away—into nothing, Arum realized. The octopus-root was starting to wear off, just in time. “Come here, Damien,” she commanded, pulling her fiancé into a messy kiss. “Arum wants to watch you fuck me.”

“Such crass language,” Damien breathed.

Arum let himself hold them with his own hands now, though he made sure to stay away from anything too delicate. One by one, the tentacles holding Damien dissipated, back into the magic ether, and Arum leaned forward to observe as Damien lined himself up and slid into Rilla. He couldn’t see Rilla’s expression from here, but Damien’s was enough; his hazy eyes flicked back and forth between Rilla and Arum, his breath coming in soft gasps, while he lifted Rilla by the thighs so he could get his knees under her and sandwich her between himself and Arum. Rilla’s strong legs wrapped around his waist so tightly that he didn’t have much room to thrust, but he used what he had with a self-assured smile like nothing Arum had ever seen on his face.

“Beautiful,” Arum sighed. “Both of you, my lovely flowers. I want to see you come apart, honeysuckle. You’re so good for us, so… so…”

Where he ran out of words, Rilla took over. “You feel amazing, Damien,” she moaned, her voice cracking when Damien snuck one hand between them to rub slow circles around her clit. “Oh, that’s just—that’s not  _ fair,  _ Damien, I’m gonna come  _ again,  _ you two are so…  _ ungh!” _

Arum had already felt Rilla come around one of his tentacles, but he could learn the sensation all over again from Damien’s face. His hair was falling into his eyes again, like always, and Arum reached up to push it out of the way again as Damien cried out and snapped his hips hard into Rilla’s shaking body. And like that, Arum held Damien’s face in his claws as he came. He never would have expected to be so tender, so careful, with his thumb gently parting Damien’s lips and his every breath shaking with so much  _ love. _

They just looked at each other for a long moment, eyes unfocused, until Rilla started to squirm between them and said, “Okay, there’s too much touching me right now. I hate to interrupt the mood, but—”

Damien pulled out of her carefully and then moved back with the kind of speed that Arum wouldn’t have expected when he looked so utterly boneless. “Are you alright, my love?”

“I’m fine. Just squished,” she laughed, cutting Damien off before he could spiral. “Wait, what happened to the tentacles?”

“They faded a few minutes ago. I’d have to use more octopus-root for them to last longer, though that would also mean more of them, with less… inhibitions,” Arum explained.

His humans looked at each other for a few seconds, then at him, Rilla tilting her head back to regard him through her lashes. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Damien mumbled.

“As I said. Insatiable.” Arum rattled low in his throat, but his words lacked their usual bite, especially when he looked down at Rilla and flicked his tongue out to tickle her nose. Her face was soft with satisfaction, and Damien was smiling at them both like he was watching the stars in the sky, and Arum had never felt so warm. Metaphorically and literally, since he  _ was  _ surrounded by endotherms, after all. He could get used to that.

**Author's Note:**

> hellooooo I just wrote 4k words in a day and it is *immensely* past my bedtime. but anyway when I saw all the tentacle fics on Valentine's Day (the horniest day of my life, hands down, y'all are amazing) I was Very Inspired and I also haven't written any lizard smut yet, and as a notorious scalie, that needed to be rectified. (it has also been requested by certain UNNAMED FORCES that i write anatomically accurate scalie smut which is terrifying but I can't say no to CERTAIN PEOPLE in my life so it'll probably happen. don't google lizard dick, kids. there are some things you don't want to know.)
> 
> anyway, this has been your daily dose of Cloaca Propaganda, I'm going to bed now. comment if you like, come visit me on tumblr/twitter (also @alderations), and I hope you enjoyed Gettin Ur Scalie On!!!
> 
> thank you Ben for beta-ing and also for the [bit about Arum misinterpreting "throes of passion"](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/benbokenobi/182840898674) cuz that was really funny and I had to include it.


End file.
